I hear people say they are lazy Brewers. I’m not sure that lazy is the right word. Remember the ultimate sophistication is simplicity. Other than repitching yeast, single infusion, no secondary, set it and forget it. What else can I do to become more sophisticated. I’m sure my wife would love to answer that but let’s just stick to the brewing process please.
Cat, check out my post from a few years ago on BIAB. 3:45 brew days from me pulling the equipment out to equipment cleaned, yeast in the fermenter, and me on the couch (or as it is now, helping tend to my 10 month old!). Shorter mash and/or shorter boil would shorten it even more.
I will also note than when living in said 890sqft rowhouse, I grew to appreciate the benefits of de-gearing as well. Said differently, one can make killer beer without a lot of shiny stainless steel to show off.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=115208&hilit=biabDo some experimentation to determine which process actually make a difference and which you can leave out.
One other thing, after 3-4 days into the ferment, I finish all ales at 68-72 and 1-2 weeks into the ferment, finish all lagers warm(er) as well. This typically aids in hastening the turnaround time and has zero impact (other than positive impact) on flavor.
I do like to get done ASAP, get to the couch, bag of chips and a cold brew, and my fav rerun of leave it to beaver. But, seems I am at a 4 hour process, but I do get to tinker with some other stuff while mashing, and boiling…. So does that make me a multi tasker? I get the feeds from beer smith and he just had one recently about this subject. sneezles61 :lol:
I doesn’t really take off time, just moves when you spend it but I find getting everything possible done the day before makes my brew day easier. Crush the grain, fill the MT and HLT, measure out the hops and put them in plastic cups labeled with the times (then back in freezer). Add some water to the HLT if you have room for clean up.
In the summer if it is warm filling the HLT & MT ahead of time will raise the temp of the water just by it sitting there. That saves some time and a little propane.
I’m not really worried about the time it takes. It doesn’t really take me long to brew a batch. I’m just looking to eliminate UN needed steps. I do biab sometimes but nothing bigger tha 5 gallons. I like to do ten gallon batches but need to do two boils since I only have an 8 and a 10. I have a 20 gallon pot arriving Friday so I can do single boils which will eliminate doing the two boils.I get my grain from my brew store/ brewery crushed so that saves that step. I’ll be adding an outside hot water hose bib so cleanup will be easier. Moving stuff around is kind of a problem, it would be nice to have a place where I can leave everything set up ready to go.
The big kettle will be awesome. Large commercial breweries max out their mash tuns typically then dilute wort before fermenting. This will help your ‘beer made : time spent brewing’ ratio.
Since my daughter was born, as I’ve said before, my brewing mantra has changed from “brew the best beer possible” to “make as much of the best beer possible whenever I get time to brew” so we max out our 30G mash tun whenever we brew, whether to fill sour fermenters or just make more/experimental brews with the same wort.
Not sure I have many other tips on deleting steps because I/we don’t know your process front to back.
Crazy. I ordered the pot yesterday and it’s sitting on my porch this morning. It was free shipping but not Amazon prime. It came with a full size strainer wonder if that can somehow be incorporated in my process.
If you BIAB you can sit the bag atop the strainer for your ‘lauter’
I’m thinking weld two forks on the brew frame. Then slide a bar through the handle of the strainer resting on one fork and lever it up to the other fork and use my cooler tun as a hlt and lauter from it. My tun is twelve gallons and I can just do a 10 gallon batch. This new system I may be able to squeeze out 15 gallons. I have to check out my boil off rate, it’s 19.5" wide. The two pots would boil off 1 gallon each. This pot shouldn’t be more than that. If I do 15 gallon boils I should save a gallon of water.
Cat I have to be honest, this doesn’t sound very ‘lazy’.
Actually a friend does the welding while I sit in a chair and watch. Brewing has its benefits.
Always mash at 150 F for the same 40 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever you prefer (try 40, I swear it works every time and it saves 20 minutes every brew day). Keep it consistent and you’ll get consistent conversion and attenuation.
Brew every recipe aiming for the same OG of 1.055 or 1.060 or whatever you like. Then you’ll get very consistent efficiency.
Always boil for the same 60 or 70 minutes or whatever, with the same kettle, same burner, etc. The old 90-minute rule for pilsner malt is baloney. Heck, maybe even switch over to 30 or 45 minutes. I might need to experiment with that. But whatever it is, find your sweet spot, and then stick with it.
Simplify your recipes. If you have more than 4 malts or 2 hops, you’re doing something wrong.
For IPAs, consider just one hopburst addition in the last 15 minutes of the boil.
For lagers, consider just one single hop addition at the beginning of the boil.
For improved head retention, just add a half pound of rye to any recipe.
For water, you’ll always be fine if you use a 75/25 or 50/50 mix of distilled and spring water. Or if you have good tap water, then more power to you.
Carbonate all your beers with the same amount of priming sugar or volumes of CO2. Use slightly less (maybe 90%) compared to what everyone else recommends.
Don’t brew more beer than you care to drink. You don’t need to always brew 5-gallon batches! If you have problems kicking kegs within a few months, move to smaller batches and just bottle it or get smaller kegs. Currently I brew 1.7 to 2 gallons per batch, every batch, and this keeps me satisfied with the variety I desire without the beer growing many months or years old. It’s not like a 1-gallon batch where you only get a 6-pack, you get more than a 12-pack, so there’s still enough to share a few without running out way too fast. There is no one right amount for everyone – 5 gallons is not the right amount for everyone. Find your own balancing point. Sounds crazy, but 1.7 gallons is just right for me. Actually 1.67 gallons…
5 divided by 3 equals… so I can just do 1/3 of the standard size batches and conversion is easy. It was a little easier to do the math with 2.5-gallon batches, but that was still too much volume of beer for me, so I had to bring in the divisor of 3.
Clean your mash equipment and fermenter during the boil. Don’t wait till the end.
Brew in a bag (BIAB) on your stove. This is a real no brainer with smaller batches. No mash tun and no turkey fryer required. No fancy tiered system required.
Don’t use a chiller. Just chill in your boil kettle by immersion in your sink, changing out the water after 15-20 minutes. You just saved time and money by not needing to buy and clean and maintain an immersion chiller.
Don’t buy any junk you don’t need. There’s cheap ‘n’ easy options for every aspect of the process. Plus all the brewing equipment I need besides my glass carboy fits in a kettle and a bucket, and can be stored the same way, taking up very very little space.
You can always sparge with cold water, too. You’ll sacrifice a couple efficiency points but it’ll still work. The brew I’m going to do this weekend - I’m going to heat my strike water using an immersion cooker in a food-grade bucket overnight. Actually I’m going to set it on a timer to turn on at 5am, so that strike water is at temp when I start brewing. Sparge with cold water from another bucket, BOOM! Easy brew day.
Waiting for the reasons you can’t sparge with cold water… :mrgreen:
Go for it, man, I’m sure it works fine. I might need to give it a try myself.
Wow, everything in here sounds pretty darn lazy. It sounds like Brew Cat is already brewing about as simple and lazily as he can. What more do you want? Brewing extract partial boil… Brewing is work, but it’s fun work. Just roll with it and enjoy it.
Don’t get me wrong I love brew day. I am only looking to make it as uncomplicated as I can especially as I increase my volume. I tried Biab this winter and liked its simplicity. I wasn’t sure it would work for 10+ gallon batches but I’m working on a system. Let’s face it, its work making it simple but work I enjoy doing.
[quote=“porkchop”]You can always sparge with cold water, too. You’ll sacrifice a couple efficiency points but it’ll still work. The brew I’m going to do this weekend - I’m going to heat my strike water using an immersion cooker in a food-grade bucket overnight. Actually I’m going to set it on a timer to turn on at 5am, so that strike water is at temp when I start brewing. Sparge with cold water from another bucket, BOOM! Easy brew day.
Waiting for the reasons you can’t sparge with cold water… :mrgreen: [/quote]
There are none!
[quote=“porkchop”]You can always sparge with cold water, too. You’ll sacrifice a couple efficiency points but it’ll still work. The brew I’m going to do this weekend - I’m going to heat my strike water using an immersion cooker in a food-grade bucket overnight. Actually I’m going to set it on a timer to turn on at 5am, so that strike water is at temp when I start brewing. Sparge with cold water from another bucket, BOOM! Easy brew day.
Waiting for the reasons you can’t sparge with cold water… :mrgreen: [/quote]
If the only goal is simplicity, I don’t see a reason not to cold sparge. However if reducing brew time is also a goal then you would be increasing that since it would take a little longer to reach boil temperature. For me it’s only the prep and clean up that I would like to shorten. The actually brewing process is my favorite part. In addition to enjoying the wonderful aromas, longer brew-time means more leave-dad-alone-time!
Oh yeah…I like the drinking part…I like that too! :cheers:
